Time line: changed future
Green Days
She meets him in High School.
A school she enrolls in to keep an eye on the Twice Blessed Witch ( if she can get an education while gathering information on the most powerful magical being in existence, then all the better according her mother), who is a year her junior.
She knows who he is, of course, and keeps the corner of an eye out for him and noting down whatever she notices about him, too. Though with much less focus than on his brother.
He is a bit nerdy.
While definitely not ambitious in concern to his grades, more often than not he has his nose in a book. Even while walking the corridors and conversing with his few friends. While passing him she spies a few titles over time and what he reads is (much to the chagrin of his teachers) not school material; it is more along the lines of knowledge he needs to survive (The Psychology of Lies and Advanced Strategies, just to name a few).
Her first impression isn't a good one.
He is the little brother of Wyatt Halliwell, so she expected someone a bit more like him, a bit stronger, a bit more open or a bit weaker, a bit softer, a bit more of the 'baby brother' type. (After all, on one memorial occasion a few years back, the Twice Blessed had been known to rip the Underworld apart and wipe out several demon covens for kidnapping his brother even after said brother had saved himself from capture (a fact that was easily overseen in the aftermath). The incident is remembered and no one had approached Chris Halliwell with half backed plans since.)
Instead he is sarcastic, rude and does not stand up for himself as got clear when a few seniors gave him a bloody lip and a black eye (in front of his friends) because they do not like how Wyatt was gaining more and more popularity.
Weeks later when the tensions between some idiots of her year and the Twice Blessed and his friends come to the clashing point, she sees need to add to her first impression of him.
He looks like he walks into the situation by coincidence; an open book in his hands whose title she does not care to identify while she is standing in the onlooking crowd, with a bag slung over his shoulder, friends lost somewhere behind him in the crowd as he joins his brother and his friends in their standoff.
Had it not been for the split second of annoyance from his face to Wyatt and exasperation from Wyatt to Chris as he marks the page of his book and closes it slowly, not putting it away (a sign of confidence, maybe arrogance even meant to grate on nerves), she might even have thought he is present by accident.
He stands half a foot in the shadow of his brother, still having clear sight, but obviously protected (a strategic position, doubtlessly from experience, from where he can use his telekinesis, protect his brother's back while Wyatt has him save with his shield and out of the way of his more destructive powers and, as she was later to learn, a place to think, to whisper plans and trick enemies, as Chris is the brains of the Halliwell-Tag-Team against demons), watching with disinterested sharp eyes how the situation is quickly moving towards violence.
It never comes to a fight; teachers arriving (to her disappointment) too soon and handing out detentions and warnings, but it is the moment when she met his eyes for the first time.
His eyes are the same as his brother's; they have the same air to them, the same hardness, the same form and the same depth. Only his aren't icy blue. They were green. A cold and yet somewhat deep green.
She leaves to write down the Halliwell Brothers' reaction to threads in her notes.
She doesn't forget to add to her (only mental) list of Chris Halliwell that he is as protective of Wyatt as Wyatt is of Chris (the difference being only that the Underworld had not yet gotten to know it).
Nothing much changes after that (since nothing of significance happened).
Or at least it doesn't at first (and only because she does not notice, much to her shame as an assassin).
But his eyes started following her; when they are in the same room during lunch, passing in the corridors between lessons or before and after school on campus; his eyes flicker to her, just for a moment, but they do nonetheless, when he should be studying yet another of his elaborate volumes or when he should be absorbed in a discussion with his friends or when he should not bother to notice her.
Him watching her is absolutely infrequent, ranging from once or twice a day to over fifty times per hour during lunch.
She has taken to being alert to the feeling of his eyes on her and counts from the corner of her eye (always careful not to be caught watching herself).
And it was always only her in his eyes, not her foolish, shallow mortal associates.
Only her.
The intensity, persistence with which he watches her, tracks her movements, looks right at her (not through her, not at her body) is impressive and would be a cause of anxiousness, would frighten her if she even suspects the faintest bit that he knows what she is.
But it doesn't frighten her and suddenly her days are drenched in green.
She hadn't planned it.
And neither had he.
It had been an accident and that alone should not have happened.
She is an assassin and as such is always aware of her surroundings.
Yet she had run into him, dropping her books, and only just refraining from conjuring an Athame when he didn't even look at her before bowing down and picking up both their books.
She doesn't help him, too stunned by the impossible coincidence.
By the time he is done and looking at her she had fallen back into her complete composure, prepared and ready for everything. Or so she thinks.
He looks at her, giving no reaction to make her think he knows she was not just a student other than a drifting glance over her wrist on the way to her face, smirking in a way that makes her think the real Chris Halliwell is not at all what he seems to be (nerdy, quiet, studious) and that she likes more than she has any right to (because she shouldn't really care what kind of expression he has and how much of his real persona is buried by mortal society) and says, 'I didn't know you to be so clumsy'.
By all rights, she should blow her cover, maybe not attacking him, but definitely insisting to know why.
Because that statement implies intimate knowledge of her.
There is nothing strange about normal students bumping into each other, yet he is suggesting otherwise; the familiarity with which he speaks should not be present while talking to a stranger, yet it is; he should not show that smirk when there was nothing to be smirking about, yet he does.
Mission wise it all goes downwards from there.
She has taken (unconsciously, which again shouldn't happen to an Assassin) to follow his movements the same way he follows hers and in this intense study of him she has come to notice things about him she has missed before.
Sometimes he (and Wyatt) move with a tired stiffness or attempt not to move certain body parts.
Sometimes his (and Wyatt's) eyes are shadowed by more than just their usual alertness and hardness.
Sometimes his gaze drifts around, expression curiously lost, and he looks significantly at his brother (a look the elder always returns) before disappearing for the rest of the day.
Sometimes he stares into empty space, face blank, shadows dancing behind his eyes, and ignoring his friends. (On those days he watches her least and sometimes most and she is just a bit curious.)
Her mission of learning about the Twice Blessed fades into the background.
The first time they speak is the day he asks her out.
He walks up to her as she changes her supplies at her locker and askes if she would like to go on a date with him.
He doesn't introduce himself, doesn't want to know her name, and doesn't seem to spare her wrists a second thought.
She says yes without preamble, logically thinking it wis going to be something of a Halliwell vs Phoenix standoff or at least a clearing of intentions. (For that her cover story is perfect as she is a year above the Twice Blessed, so if it would is anything, then them invading her territory.)
The meeting is not hostile.
They meet at a café on a Saturday and he introduces himself, asks her name and then inquires almost shyly what she would like to do.
Baffled (and, having packed mostly potions and weapons, she doesn't carry much money) she replies heavily suspicious she'd like to stay and talk.
They do just that and to her surprise not only is nothing magical or threatening involved in the afternoon, but she is also enjoying her time more than she ever thought possible in the presence of a Halliwell.
When he asks her for a Second she doesn't say no, despite the voice in her head that sneers at her that he is a Halliwell (the family of Good Witches) and that she should be happy to never see him again.
Still she doesn't say no.
On date number fifteen she purposefully forgets to cover her birthmark with both makeup and spells, having come to the conclusion that their relationship (which they keep secret; both giving very vague family reasons to each other) is becoming a bit too comfortable to her and that she likes him a bit too much.
The break up does not go as planned.
During their date he catches sight undeniably clearly of the red sign once in a way that he can't pass over, knowing her eyes are on him, but he just looks at her, raising a curious eyebrow and when she doesn't say anything (waiting for any degree of accusations to violence she can use to make the break clean and painless) he smirks in his endearing arrogant way, compliments her on her nice tattoo and steers her to the next movie.
She doesn't remember much of the film and she never covers her mark again.
His brother is the first to find out about them. Coincidently, but not surprisingly.
It is a Saturday and she and Chris are in the city, moving from shop to shop, chatting around, laughing about stupid demons and enjoying their time only to run literally into Wyatt.
Chris, becoming as white as a sheet, sends her an apologetic fleeting glance before he forcefully pulls his brother away.
She hears their orbs jingling from the alley they disappeared into and wonders if it was a good or a bad thing the (not clean) break up was going to come now, thinking that in the end they are after all impossible.
Surprisingly nothing happens and discovers that she and Wyatt got along just fine.
From time to time Wyatt has overprotective fits or bouts of suspicion during which he always eyes her with distrust and a threat in his set jaw, glaring at her and going out of his way to put as much distance between her and Chris as possible.
During other times they manage to joke together (on Chris' expenses) and pretend that they aren't close to mortal enemies.
Wyatt is in full support of hiding any and all connections between them, too. His words being that while it is expected of all Halliwells to date Evil at one point during their lives it doesn't mean she wouldn't get blown up the second she steps through their front door. (And Wyatt, despite not being all that pleased about his brother dating her, mentions at one point or another that he thinks better her than someone who isn't at the brink and sane.)
Chris had a skill for fighting, she discovers.
Having come to terms with the trouble that follows Chris (and Wyatt and the Halliwells) on date number seventeen it goes without saying that she no longer feigns ignorance when Chris runs off from one moment to another only to return sometime later, dust clinging to his clothes, but instead is right beside him on his way into the latest dirty alley.
After a few joined vanquishes (where she takes great care not to be seen and to make the kill beyond dead as not to get into trouble with Phoenix customers) she notes how Chris analyzes her movements and makes them his own quite easily.
She takes to actively coaching him a bit after laughing herself sick at the irony of a Halliwell being good with assassin techniques.
She graduates with his brother.
Having repeated one year to keep spying on his brother, or so she told her coven, she takes great advantage of school's consume of her time to distance herself from the uglier part of her family business, while also spending plenty of said time with Chris, as them meeting during and in school is less conspicuous than taking afternoons or weekends off.
Staying a year longer turns out as a mistake.
Piper Halliwell, upon hearing her name, freezes the entire ceremony and she, caught off guard does not stop in time, moving an inch too much.
It is only the floorboard scattering into pieces in front of her because Chris, sitting next to his mother, deliberately disturbs her aim.
Against her will and quite furious with him when he does so, Chris waved his arms in his unique skill, dematerializing her into countless blue orbs from afar, only to have her materialize again behind the podium, hidden from sight. (Knowing that only orbing her is pushing it and sending her away further because of his mother would result in blood. His.)
The discussion between mother and son is loud and long, making it quite clear from where Chris has his temper and stubbornness.
It settles with an agreement to talk it all out later and not to blow her up on sight (not that it could harm her) partly due to the very public place and partly because both give not an inch.
It all ends in a very tense confrontation in the Halliwell manor.
Chris, backed by Wyatt (having gotten an earful on the way back home already, or so she hears later) and surprisingly Phoebe (gushing about how romantic the two of them are and wondering if perhaps she had tried to kill him during their first meeting), fights with Piper, supported by her husband and Paige.
Multiple windows and decorations suffer, but an agreement is reached, forcing Piper to acknowledge very reluctantly that the two of them have been going out for almost two years already without more problems than the occasional demon attack and that if it hadn't been for Bianca's cover been blown on stage (for some reason that she still doesn't know) they probably would still keep it secret.
The first time Bianca officially came by the house was filled with the smell of delicious food.
Not potions.
.
.
I wrote this little one shot, because I was disappointed with the small number of Chris and Bianca stories. They are, in my opinion the cutest couple in Charmed even though Bianca appeared only in one episode.
As this is my first time writing in this style and for Charmed I'd appreciate criticism and some opinions on how I did, so please leave a comment.
Merry Christmas everyone. :)